


you feel like (you are) my home

by thinkatory



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Crimes & Criminals, Diabetes, F/M, Sibling Incest, Underage Sex, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1522067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkatory/pseuds/thinkatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gretel, Hansel, the nature of love, and discovering a purpose and a home. <i>She practices picking locks. She breaks into a Walgreens and grabs as much insulin and syringes as she can, and a cooler and ice to pack it all up with. It goes into their collection of things to haul around, even if it’s more conspicuous. Gretel doesn’t care. Her brother is alive.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	you feel like (you are) my home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jaegermighty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaegermighty/gifts).



> Modern AU Hansel/Gretel! This was entirely too much fun, I hope you like reading it as much as I liked writing it. My god, this canon is so great. (Timeframe for this is 1990s-2000s, btw, in case anyone is wondering.)

When Gretel Connolly is nine, her dad leaves her and her brother at a bus station in Paramus.

“He’s not coming back,” Hansel whispers to her, four hours later, when the workers are starting to leave and the lights start going off.

"Just wait,” Gretel says, and holds tightly onto him in the corner of the closet they’ve kept themselves safe in all this time.

The shadows can’t hide them for long. When the exhaustion gets to them and they fall asleep clutched in each other’s arms, there’s ten minutes of blissful sleep until there’s a flashlight in their eyes and stern questions from a security guard.

She’s only nine but Gretel makes up fake names for the both of them, and while the police sort of people or whatever are running around looking for kids with the horrible names Gerta and Hanschen O’Connell, she ditches the social worker to go to the bathroom. She meets Hansel halfway there. She grins and hugs him, and he doesn’t let go.

They find a fire door and go through it. The alarms sound, and they never stop sounding from that point on.

 

\--

 

It’s only a matter of time before they get caught, and they’re split up. Gretel won’t leave her brother for anything. She kicks and screams and shouts. “H! Hansel! I’ll be back for you! I promise! _Don’t give up on me!_ ”

“Never! I’ll find you, G,” Hansel shouts back. “I promise!”

It’s not a pinky swear. It’s way more serious than that. It’s what keeps her awake that night, hatching plans and arguing inwardly about how best to get back to her brother. Her stomach hurts when she thinks of just going to sleep and leaving him wherever he is, but she knows that this is going to take a plan. The social workers already know they’re going to run. What they don’t know is _when._

The orphanage is terrible. Gretel hates everyone there. The worst thing is really when the adults start showing up at the orphanage and taking kids away. It’s not like kidnapping, it’s more like getting a puppy. They make sure you have your shots and you’re healthy and eating and all that stuff, and no one at the orphanage ever sees you again.

It’s almost like they expect you to forget everything that happened before, to forget how Mom told Dad that they had to go, like they were moving away and they had to pack their bags for a trip or something, and then just let them sit and ride away on stupid social work things like the stuffed elephant Gretel had left on a bus that one time and never saw again.

Like she’s going to trust another mom and dad. Like she’s going to trust any other mom and dad with Hansel. Like she’s going to do anything they tell her to do.

“No,” Gretel says, steel in her voice, her arms crossed over her chest. She glowers at the social worker. “I won’t go. Not without my brother.”

The social worker purses her lips. “Gretel, you have to understand that foster families will often take on multiple children, and don’t have space for any – ”

“I don’t care,” Gretel says loudly. “If I don’t go with my brother _I don’t go anywhere._ ”

Kicking, screaming, and refusing to eat does wonders for making them take her threats seriously. Weeks later, they tell her she has a visitor, and she rolls her eyes and goes to the living room, and when she seems him it’s like one of the other orphanage kids punched her in the stomach again, in the best possible way. “ _Hansel_ ,” she cries, and rushes into his arms.

“Told you so,” Hansel murmurs into her ear, and hugs her tightly. “I want to go with her,” he speaks up to the social workers watching.

There’s some sort of adult conversation that Gretel doesn’t care to listen to, because she’s so afraid she’s going to cry in front of everyone and that’ll just make things worse. “Are you okay?” she asks him.

“I’m okay,” Hansel whispers. “Are you okay?”

She nods, blinking away tears. “I’m never gonna lose you again,” she tells him.

"No way,” he confirms. “I won’t let you.”

She could start really crying now, like some kind of crybaby, but then the social worker is calling her name, and Hansel’s, and then they’re telling them about a nice lady who is interested in meeting them and maybe fostering them. She lives in a part of the city Gretel hasn’t ever been, but it’s not far from where they’re from and maybe they can hide in the old house if Mom and Dad have really disappeared into thin air like Hansel thinks they have.

“What’s her name?” Hansel asks urgently.

“Mrs. O’Mailey,” the social worker says. “You’ll both have to be on your best behavior. Gretel, I expect you to eat. Hansel, no fighting.”

“They started it,” Hansel says, defensive.

“They started it with me, too,” Gretel says, and rolls her eyes again. “Stupid kids.”

“Gretel, language,” the social worker chides her

Gretel huffs. “Come on, H. They have a TV here.” They go, and the social workers keep talking about whatever. “Who cares who this lady is,” she tells Hansel. “We’ll go there, get some money, and leave.”

“That’s stealing,” Hansel whispers back.

"How do you think we got to Queens? We stole,” she returns. “Do you really want a new mom?”

“’Course not,” he says, annoyed. “So we pretend and then go?”

“Exactly,” Gretel confirms, and sits down in front of the TV with him. “Easy as cake.”

 

\--

 

O’Mailey is a nightmare. She tells them to call her Martha and there’s no way that’s happening. Hansel insists she smells weird, and not just like the licorices and candy she tries to make them eat way after the whole thing is awesome and they get sick of it. “She smells like old chicken bones,” he tells her finally, dead certain, on the second day. “We gotta get out of here.”

“You two,” O’Mailey calls, “always hiding! Come out, my sweets. Let’s watch some television.” Gretel grimaces, and neither answers, hoping she’ll give up and go watch Murder She Wrote or something. “Children! Hansel, Gretel, don’t make me send you to bed without dinner!”

“Chicken bones,” Hansel mutters, and Gretel straightens. She grabs his hand and tugs him out, and smiles at the lady who isn’t _that_ old but smells like death anyway. (He’s right. Chicken bones. That’s what she smells like.)

“Hi. We were playing a game,” she tells O’Mailey, with what the orphanage people always called ‘her best poker face’. “What are we going to watch?”

“A movie,” O’Mailey tells them, with another one of those smiles. “Go, sit. I’ll get the sweets for my sweethearts.”

Hansel presses his face into his hands when she leaves the room. “Can’t eat anymore,” he mumbles.

“We’re almost done, H,” Gretel whispers to him.

“What do you mean?” Hansel whispers back.

“Here we go,” O’Mailey calls, and brings in a big plate of cookies and candy. “Come, sit with me! I have the tape in and everything.”

Gretel gives Hansel an expectant look and they tromp over to the couch, ready to reluctantly sit through whatever to give the foster lady some reason to think they aren’t going to steal half her money tomorrow. The movie’s in black and white and it’s all Gretel can do not to groan, and Hansel mumbles something, but then O’Mailey’s nudging the plate at them. “Go on,” she urges them. “Don’t be shy.”

She realizes she recognizes the beginning: it’s _The Wizard of Oz_. She actually likes this movie, and her favorite is the scarecrow. “I don’t want to,” Hansel insists, and that snaps Gretel out of it. _Oh no_.

“What do you mean?” O’Mailey asks, and they’re all so close that she smells like gross sugar syrup and death and Gretel is glaring before she can stop herself. “Don’t be ungrateful, Hansel.”

“You can’t make me,” Hansel says, defensive. “I’ll get sick and then what?”

“You won’t get sick,” O’Mailey assures him, and smiles. _Her face changes._ For just a second, she looks like a monster, and Gretel immediately shoves her arm out to defend Hansel. “I need you healthy. _Robust._ ”

“We’re sick of sweets,” Gretel says shortly.

“You’ll eat them,” O’Mailey says; her blue eyes are glowing and her face is almost melting and Gretel is worried she’s going crazy until she sees the look on Hansel’s face and the way he’s shaking. “Or you’ll be punished.”

“No,” Gretel says, as firmly as she can, though her knees are shaking.

O’Mailey casually reaches for her pocket, and draws out, with fingers way more spindly than before, a long stick of wood. The overture of _The Wizard of Oz_ plays in the background. “They told me you’d make this difficult,” she says, gestures with the stick, and throws Hansel against the wall and sticks him there like he’s some kind of doll. Gretel throws herself at the evil foster lady, and she gets scratched (bitten?) and shoved to the ground.

There O’Mailey stands, way thinner and meaner and grosser, definitely a monster, and all Gretel can do is go with her first impulse and shout, “Hansel! H! Are you all right?” She spares a glance Hansel’s way, and when she turns to face him and he starts to haltingly answer, something heavy slams into the back of her head and she slips into darkness.

 

\--

 

When Gretel wakes up, she finds Hansel, still knocked out, in a cage made of bones on the table, and gets blisters from Monster O’Mailey’s magic wand when she dares touch it. O’Mailey sends her into what she used to call “the sewing room,” which doesn’t even have a sewing machine in it, probably because it’s full of weird roots and plants and bottles, to get different bottles and things.

She’s a witch. There’s nothing else she can be. Gretel understands now.

When Gretel brings out the last few bottles, there’s a huge pot on the stove bubbling away, a bunch of saws and knives, and an entire bucket of candy. She stops dead, with enough presence of mind not to drop the bottles – who knows what the witch would do if she did? – and makes a split second decision to not panic and just _figure it out_. Her fear turns to rabid determination in an instant.

The witch gestures impatiently for the bottles, looks at one or two, and sets them aside, pouring little bits from this bottle here and that bottle there. “You, watch the pot, let me know when it turns blue-green,” she snaps at Gretel. “Hansel! Hansel, it’s time to wake up.” There’s a flash of light, and Hansel blinks awake. “It’s time for dinner!”

“No,” Hansel mutters, still not really awake.

Gretel glances between the pot and Hansel, doing her best to keep an eye on everything, including possible escape routes that include running away from a lady who can do magic spells, which was not something she’d considered before.

“Yes,” the witch insists, and grabs him through the cage by the neck, shoving candy into his mouth. He has no option but to chew, Gretel realizes, when there’s so much and she doesn’t let him spit. He’s coughing and gagging and starting to cry, and that’s when she decides the witch has to die.

Hansel looks past the witch, at her, and she nods to him, grim, encouraging. There has to be something.

When she looks at the pot, on tiptoes, to check on the color, she sees that the oven is on, too. “Are you making cookies?” she asks, pretending to be excited.

“I’m making pot pies,” the witch says, more concerned with Hansel at this point. “Once this one’s all ready, he’ll make a good tender meat, and his blood... so sweet.”

“No,” Hansel protests, through a mouthful of sweets. “Please no – ”

 _Soon_ , Gretel mouths at Hansel. _Wait._ “Are you going to eat me too?” she asks the witch, cautious.

“Later,” the witch says, dismissive. “I’ll make use of you until then.”

 _You’re not going to eat my brother_ , Gretel wants to say, but she has to wait, no matter how hard it is to watch Hansel suffering and choking. The oven finally makes that clicking sound, and she gestures to Hansel while mouthing, _Push._ She climbs onto the stepstool, and Hansel shoves himself forward to push the witch into Gretel’s path, and she shrieks and hurls abuse at him just before Gretel uses all her strength to push the pot of boiling whatever over, and on top of the witch.

She screams. She screams bloody murder, and Hansel is still trapped in the cage, now on the floor, panting and backing away from the boiling potion spilling all over the linoleum. Gretel hurries to let him out, the potion sloshing around her ankles; she ignores it, the pain, and runs across the wet floor to pull open the oven, snatching the magic wand on her way. “Help me,” she calls to Hansel, hauling the witch, who’s blindly grasping for her wand where it used to be, up as best she can. With Hansel’s help, they shove her facefirst into the oven.

She screams and screams into the back of the oven, all muffled, and eventually the screams are shorter and finally she goes limp.

Gretel looks at Hansel, his face pale and stained with all sorts of candy colors, and says evenly, “Let’s get our stuff. It’s time to run.”

 

\--

 

The second day they’re on the run, Hansel sees their faces on TV. It’s a suspected murder and kidnapping now, and Gretel is more than happy to let everyone think that. The other option is that they’ll get blamed and thrown into prison and there’s no way she’s going to let that happen.

That week is a blur of stealing and crossing state lines, of scavenging for food, hiding from adults and cops, and finding warm places to sleep. They’re doing just fine until Gretel goes back to check on Hansel and he’s asleep and he won’t wake up.

She doesn’t have the time to cry, even though she wants to. She steals a shopping cart and hauls him to a homeless shelter they’ve been avoiding going into, and finally bursts into tears when they realize what’s happening.

He’s sick. They can wake him up. But he’s sick and he’ll never get better. It’s a disease called diabetes, and he has to poke himself with needles and eat the right things or he’ll fall asleep and die.

Gretel knows who to blame. Monster O’Mailey. She’d kill her again if she could, and a third time too.

 

\--

 

It’s not as easy, then. Hansel has to eat, every day, every meal. He needs insulin. There’s almost no way to be on the run and away from shelters, until Gretel realizes what she has to do. She has to steal it. 

She practices picking locks. She breaks into a Walgreens and grabs as much insulin and syringes as she can, and a cooler and ice to pack it all up with. It goes into their collection of things to haul around, even if it’s more conspicuous.

Gretel doesn’t care. Her brother is alive.

“You’re always saving me,” Hansel murmurs to her when she’s giving him another injection.

“That’s what family does,” she reminds him, and leans over to kiss his cheek.

“Love you,” he says.

“Love you too.”

 

\--

 

Over the next three months they practice their pickpocketing and lockpicking. Gretel becomes really, really good at the locks, Hansel is better at pickpocketing, but both are getting really good at cornering kids and politely asking for their money while holding something heavy. Sure, they’re only almost eleven, but they’re homeless and probably going to kid jail if they get caught, so they have like nothing to lose. Plus, they’ve gotten really good at hitting things (or people) really hard.

They’re eating sandwiches made from stolen bread and cheese, and sharing an apple, when a lady shows up in the park and carefully approaches them. Gretel eyes her without actually making eye contact, and gives Hansel a signal, and they ignore her in hopes that she’ll go away. No one can be trusted. Anyone could be one of them. If a witch can get a couple of kids hand-delivered to her by the State of New York, there’s literally no way there aren’t witches just wandering the parks hoping to find kids like them. 

“Are you two all right?” the lady says, and Gretel ignores her. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“We’re off of school,” Hansel says simply.

 "If you two are in trouble, I know a place you could go,” the lady goes on, and holds out a piece of paper. Gretel looks up only for a second, and rolls her eyes. “My name is Molly. I work at a shelter. It’s a safe place. It’s warm. We have food, and clothes.”

“We have clothes,” Hansel interrupts her, annoyed.

Gretel cuts in, too. “Our dad wouldn’t like you talking to us.”

“Where is your dad right now?” the lady asks gently.

“He’s busy,” Gretel says. “We’re having lunch. Can you leave us alone?”

“Please. Take this,” the lady presses, and drops the paper in Gretel’s lap. “Just in case you need a place to stay.”

Neither of them answers her, so she leaves. When she’s definitely out of earshot, Gretel says, “We need to get in a bathroom. And wash our clothes. They can tell we’re homeless.”

“We should leave Dover, too,” Hansel says, and makes a face back at Gretel. “I know you like it here but they’re going to send stupid social workers after us next, if they know we’re here.”

“Yeah.” Gretel sighs, and eats the last bite of her sandwich. “We have enough money, I think. Where do you want to go?”

Hansel considers that. “Trenton.”

That makes Gretel pause. “It’s so close to home.”

“We’ve been in Delaware too long anyway.”

“You’re right.” She sighs, and hugs Hansel around the neck. “We’re gonna make it, H.”

“I know.” He hugs her back. “Because of you.”

She holds him tightly. “I wouldn’t have made it without you either,” she whispers.

He nudges out of the hug some, and she moves to back off, slightly more cheerful, but he stops her by putting his hand over hers on his leg. She looks up at him, questioning, and he moves awkwardly to kiss her on the lips.

She’s more surprised than anything, and it shows on her face, she knows by the look on his face, but she smiles once it’s become real. He relaxes, then, and she rests against his shoulder.

“Five sound okay?” she asks him.

“Yeah,” he confirms, and takes her hand in his.

They’re not homeless. This is their home, together.

 

\--

 

Gretel’s lost count of how many pharmacies she’s broken into. All she knows is this is _not_ her last one, no matter how long she’s going to be stuck in “juvie,” as they call jail for kids. She has the presence of mind to give fake names again. There’s no way for them to be identified, probably, so it should work, at least for a few months.

“Leave me alone,” she tells the social worker, loudly and pointedly.

“It’ll only be a few months, Greta. You can visit with your brother – maybe you’ll even go to the same foster home,” the social worker says, all encouraging.

“Great,” Gretel says, all sarcastic. “I love foster homes.”

“It’s not safe for Harry to be a runaway, hon,” the social worker tries. “And you can’t steal from businesses like that. It’s against the law.”

“Shut up,” Gretel says, evenly. “It’s not safe for us to be in freaking foster homes, either.”

That makes the social worker pause. “What happened in the foster home, dear?”

“Why do you care? I’m going to juvie.”

“Well,” the social worker starts, and Gretel decides she doesn’t care. As usual, she just has to wait for the right time. Then, and only then, she can get Hansel back.

 

\--

 

The girls in juvie _hate_ her. They hate her more than anyone in the orphanages ever did, and she’s lucky that she learned how to fight already, because she’s breaking noses and knocking out teeth without much of a problem, no matter if she winds up in therapy and being chastised and chided for it.

“Who cares?” she tells all of the adults who bother her. “I did what I did, I’m here, why do you care if I stop fighting or what?”

“Because it’s not healthy,” the therapist says. “And we’re worried about you, Greta.”

“Go to hell,” she decides to start saying.

It turns out that punching one of the wardens was not a good idea, and she curses herself for it when she gets three more months in juvie for it, waiting until late, late at night to cry in the bathroom. _Hansel_. She can’t stand the thought of him waiting for her, or, worse, happily settling in with some family away from her, one that can take care of him and provide and get him insulin whenever he needs it.

It hurts, physically, like someone’s carved her heart out of her chest and she’s just bleeding and trying to breathe. She doesn’t feel like she’s going to survive this, the not knowing, the way her world is falling apart.

She stops fighting except in self-defense. She stops refusing to eat, shouting at the therapists, glowering at the wardens. She just keeps her poker face on and lies to the therapists, giving them all sort of fake clues to follow. Eventually, they let her out. She demands a chance to visit Hansel (or Harry, or whatever), and reads the address upside down on the paperwork.

He’s still at the orphanage. This should be easy.

 

\--

 

It’s been six months, and Gretel’s stomach is roiling as she looks in each bedroom ( _oh god, he thinks I’m gone, he’s safe with everyone else and I’m a terrible sister, I should just_ ). But when she looks into the fourth one, bringing a slash of light into the room with her, she sees Hansel, and his eyes open, and he grins at her.

It takes a distraction to steal the insulin and break into the lockbox full of money, but Gretel planned for that.

They’re on the run again. They spend the night on the trains, transferring as often as they can, until morning. They share a kiss again in an empty car, again, again. They’re too happy to care about what this means, what they’ve done. They’re _together_.

 

\--

 

It’s Hansel who brings it up, while they’re huddled in a refrigerator box in the cold of early April.

“The witches,” he says. “What about the witches?”

“What about them?” Gretel sighs. “That’s why I didn’t want you to go into that damn orphanage.”

“They’re probably eating other kids,” Hansel points out. “Or making them do things, or hurting them however. We should stop them.”

Gretel opens her mouth to answer him, then shuts it, thinking. “Then we could take their stuff,” she says. “We wouldn’t have to run around and...”

“We could survive on it,” Hansel agrees. He’s beside himself with this idea. “And it’d be a good thing, we wouldn’t be criminals and – ”

“We need weapons,” she says, rapidly. “And, and we have to do research.”

“Do you think there’s really research?”

“At least the library’s warm,” she says, and grins.

 

\--

 

Their research at the library doesn’t turn up much except about how to kill witches, but they find a reference to a book on how to find witches, and they eventually find _that_ book by calling a bunch of occultist bookstores.

It’s way easier to hunt them then.

Their second witch is a nurse who poisons kids to make them look dead and then takes them home to do some sort of experiments on them. They cut her head off, and release the kids. They take her money, her checkbook, all of the clothes that fit Gretel, and as much food as they can reasonably carry in their backpacks. They sell everything else, and get as far away as they can.

Their third witch works at a homeless shelter, and their fourth and fifth work at a juvie hall. _It figures_ , Gretel thinks. It takes all the way up until the fifth witch, who seems to know what they’re planning, for them to realize that the real magic curses, the ones they’ve read about, don’t work on them.

It would explain the surprised looks on the witches’ faces. But it’s weird. None of the books explain it.

They kill three more witches in New England, then they’re pointed way more inland than they’ve ever been before. The enchanted map says Ohio.

So they go to Ohio.

 

\--

 

It’s not like they spend a lot of time watching TV, because TV is for people with houses. At one point, though, they get a chance to hang out in one of the witches’ apartments in December (after stabbing her in an alley, putting her in a dumpster, and setting it ablaze; fire is the best, surest way to kill them, they’ve learned). Her TV is _huge_ , and awesome, so they hang out there for an hour or two, and that’s when they see the local news.

“Turn it off,” Hansel complains.

“Shut up,” Gretel tells him, and watches raptly as a graphic appears in the corner of the screen: “The Ladykiller Arsonist.”

“Who cares,” Hansel asks, annoyed. “I want to watch some action movies, and she has HBO.”

“You just want to see boobs,” Gretel says, dismissive. “ _Listen_.” She has a bad feeling about this, especially when they show a map with all of the victims of this arsonist. Hansel’s watching now, too, his eyes wider. “I told you we needed to watch this,” she says.

“Will this killer’s rampage of terror be brought to an end before he makes his way across the country?” the newscaster asks. “The FBI are working towards that goal exactly.”

“They think we’re a guy,” Gretel says, amused.

 "I’m a guy,” Hansel points out.

“You’re a boy!”

“I am not a boy,” he argues. “I’m thirteen.”

“I think you’re a boy,” Gretel says, and smirks at his expression. “We should go. They won’t have identified her yet, and we already have a location.”

“Ugh,” Hansel complains, looking at the map. “Really?”

“Look at it this way,” Gretel says. “At least Louisiana is warm. Full of stuff for us to do.”

“Yeah. Witches. That’s what I’m worried about,” he says, dryly, and seeks out her hand. “Let’s show those bitches.”

She laughs at that, and squeezes his hand. “First we pack. Then, New Orleans.”

 

\--

 

After dispatching only one sabbath’s worth of witches and four others, they leave the rest of the witches at work in Louisiana because the feds are going to catch on eventually.

The thing is, it seems neverending. They can’t flee across the Canadian border. It’d be a hell of a lot of work to cross the Mexican border, and the _brujas_ there are brutal if the lore pans out. The FBI isn’t nearly as hot on their trail as they like to think – they probably think there’s a pattern because they’re serial killers and they’re trying to make a point, but it’d be way more sense if they treated them like exterminators – and the cops have basically no idea that they’re kids until much later.

There’s evidence, and a possible witness, the national news says. They think the killers are teenagers, maybe Satanists.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Hansel says, staring at the TV.

“We should pretend to make one a sacrifice,” Gretel deadpans.

“You’re so morbid,” Hansel says, a little appalled.

She punches his arm. “It’s a joke, dumbass.”

They grin at each other.

Two days later, they have sketches that look sort of, but not exactly, like them, up on the news. Hansel makes fun of Gretel’s – her nose is off-center – but she just points out that she’s the prettiest girl Hansel’s ever kissed, and that shuts him up.

Six months later, there’s a book out. _Satan’s Handmaiden and Death’s Apprentice_. They see it in the library when they’re researching marsh witches in Wisconsin, and page through it in interest and amusement. Probably the reasonable thing to do is be worried, but they’re not. Not even slightly.

“I like it,” Gretel confesses, looking at the cover, the drawing of the pale girl with long dark hair  hand in hand with her tall, strong accomplice.

“Yeah,” Hansel says, and tangles his fingers with Gretel’s. Her face grows warm. “Me, too.”

 

\--

 

Two years and thirty witches later, there’s a movie. The posters are everywhere. The news is aghast at the whole thing, the murders, the continuing rampage, the commercialization and sensationalism and blah blah blah. They go online at the nearest library, check the usual websites, and there’s a forum.

 _I think my neighbor’s a witch_ , the first one is titled, and all the rest are similar. _Someone’s killing kids in my town. We keep finding bones in campfires at the state park. No one wants to talk about it. It happened before, and it’s getting worse._

 _Help us_ , they all say. _Wherever you are. We know you’re there. Please help us._

“Hansel,” Gretel breathes, and clutches at his arm. He looks back at her with the same stunned, confused mix of emotions in his eyes, and they start to frantically write down everything posted there, ready to investigate and kill those bitches.

Once they’re home in the cheap hotel room, she curls up against him on the bed, sedate and comfortable and still in shock. “They know, H,” she whispers. “They get it.”

“We’re the good guys,” he says, and presses a kiss to her temple. “We’ve done good.”

“And we’re gonna do more,” she says, tracing a finger along his shoulder. “Are you excited?”

“Yeah,” he says, his gaze close on her, as though she’s the only thing in this world that matters. It excites her more than it should, but she doesn’t care. To everyone else, what they do, what they are, is wrong. But they don’t know the truth.

It’s impossible to tell who really initiated the kiss, but it’s different, so different. There’s a heat in it, a desperation and need. She crawls on top of him, fervently kissing him again and again, murmuring his name between kisses, and when he touches the bare line of skin exposed on her back, she leans into him in a way that makes him groan. She strips her shirt away from her skin that feels as aflame as one of the many witches they’ve brought down, and they lose control. He rushes out of the door once they realize what's going to happen, what's inevitable, and it's the best kind of agony until he comes back.

This is Hansel and Gretel. Hansel&Gretel. When she slides the condom onto him, kisses him slow and languid, and pours herself onto him all maddeningly slow, no matter the pain, it’s everything they’ve ever known was right.

This is home. _They_ are home.


End file.
